I've attended ConQuest for the first time this year, and I had a great deal of fun! It was fun to see what the differences where between German and Dutch larps, and it was an excellent change of scenery indeed! ConQuest scored better on several fields compared to Dutch larps, such as the quality of the camp decorations, some of the costumes where absolutely gorgeous and large scale fighting which was surprisingly safe (I was a bit fearful at first that such large fights would get very disorganized and unsafe). However, one of the fields that did not score so well in my opinion was rituals. I have seen a few nice rituals, but most where not as impressive as those I have seen over the years in the Netherlands. Being a player who enjoys rituals very much (both as spectator and participant), I was a bit disappointed by this. All these props looked so nice, but there where hardly any nice ritual locations. It was obvious to me that most players spent a great deal of time and money on their costumes, camp and background, but rituals where somehow left out of the equation.

I have the opinion that if you have critique on something, it is your duty to also point out how it can be improved. It might be a culture thing (rituals aren't considered important perhaps?) or perhaps there are just more skillful ritualists who serve as an example in dutch larps. Whatever the case, I've written a document that can serve as a guide on how to create, design and perform rituals. The document is designed to be non-setting specific, but keep in mind that some of the "rules" I describe herein might not be applicable everywhere. I've also started writing a document on how to rate rituals as a referee, which I will probably publish somewhere too.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxwUYI ... 281UWJyTlU

Enjoy reading! Any comments on the documents are more than welcome. Feel free to share or copy any part of the document as long as you mention my name.

Two things:

I really appreciate your effort! This document is really nice and I would like to present in an in-character way sometimes. Could you put your characters name on the front page?
From what I read, you have a strong grasp on how to make a good ritual, so maybe we can learn something from you. So, thank you very much!

Then, from what I've seen at LARPs in germany, at almost every convention there is a ritual which has to be protected or interrupted... And its mostly boring. I don't want any more rituals, especially the easy ones like on Mythodea. Standing around and chanting the name of my camp/avatar? Thats not really entertaining for me. But the problem is, the plot requires them. So, the players do it like I described and the Referees say "OK, requirements fulfilled". Thats the reason I would be happy with fewer rituals at the moment. Maybe they could be a lot better prepared like in your paper...

Hey there

First I'm no magician player ^^
But, as much as anyone, I appreciate a good ritual and I love the atmosphere it brings to a game.

I've been playing LARP for about 20 years now and I've seen my share and participated in a few ritials. Bad ones and good ones.

For me, what seperated the good ones, from the bad, wasn't always the way they had been prepared and/or what was spoke or sung to make them work. Mostly it was the intensity with which the participating players "played" their part. And by "playing" I mead how much passion and conviction they placed into the rite they were celebrating.

The standart "Vivat-Rituals", mostly are boring because they don't get to you as a player.
Those rituals that actually "worked" for me, where those that grabbed me by the collar and yanked me into the action. I was pulled in, sucked into the rythm and passion that the participants poured into its completition.

For me everything depends on, how "seriously" the charakters take the ritual.
And by that I don't mean that the players should belive it'll truly work on some mystical level, of course not.
I mean that they roles should do just that.
If my character belives a ritual has to, must, and will work, then I'll do everything in my power to make it work, within the confines of the world I'm currently playing in.

For most of us modern folks, letting go of disbelive and our natural scepticism of the mystical isn't that easy. Even in a world of make belive, such as LARP.
This is, at least as far as I can see, one of the reasons people are leery of rituals in LARP.
People don't like to realy let go of belives and act out belives completely different then their own.

But If they do, the results are amazing and atomspheric beyond belive.
Even if its an impromptu rite, held on the spot by some lone adventurers in need of mystical help.

As everything else in LARP and Fantasy Roleplaying as a whole, it all depends on a certain suspension of disbelive. Which can only be accomplished by everyone participating in a manner most fitting to the setting and his or her role.
My most intense imperssion came to me completely unexpected and left me deeply impressed, by how much effort and passion the players had poured into it.

In 2011 my character had just been beaten to near death by a Phobosar and had survived the ordeal of being stiched back together by some healers and alchemists in an emergency field operation. As he was stumbling back to his camp, someone grabbed him and with the simple words:
"We need you for a ritual."
hauled him by the scruff into a large tent, filled to bursting with people. It was hot and humid insinde, it stank of incense, fire and people sweating.
"But what am I supposed to do?" I asked, still hurting from my unfortunate enqunter before and totally confused.
"Call to Aqua, that's all you need to do.", was all I got as advice.
I was thrust to the ground and kneeling I looked around me and found some few others sitting and chanting in various languages to their respective elements. Everyone seemed to have their own way of doing it, so I decied to do the same and begann reciting a prayer I had come up with some days before.
Now the amazing thing was, someone begann to beat a drumm and over a short time everyone fell into its rhythm and our voices became something like a low murmurring chant by themselves. In time with the beat of the drumm, which slowly got more and more intense untill all of us were finally nearly screaming our lungs out.
Then someone was dragged into the middle of the circle we formed and alchemists and doctors begann cutting away at horrible wounds the guy had obviously suffered before. (They used latex applications and fake blood to GREAT effect!)
Others crowded into the tent to watch the ordeal and it became more and more suffocatingly hot and stuffed inside. But we never stopped chanting. I was sweating rivers by then.
Finally someone brought forth a great mace and the fallen warrior grabbed it and after a few moments held it aloft triumphantly from the crowd of people gathered about his person. With a great roar he got up and strode through the press of people.
As he left the tent a cheer went up and people hugged and laughed.
I still wasn't exactly sure what we had just done.
Then I heard somone shout that the person healed had been a very important man from the fire camp.
All my char. received was a pat on the back and a "Well done." from somone in the crowd.

But still, it had been my most intense LARP ritual ever, because of the way all of us participating in it worked together to "make it work" and to make it a great experience for everyone. I'll never forget it in my life

For me the most important thing in a ritual is this "will to make it work", for everyone.
Everyone involved must work to this end. There is no opting out. Everyone must improvise to his/her best ability and it WILL be a success!
I'm sure of it.

CU
SaM

I am also going to make an in-character version of the document. My character was Abraxas from camp magicka btw, usualy hanging around the chaos cultists. There are some Out of Character references in there, which need to be removed or altered.

Rituals do not have to be boring! Not even protecting or interrupting them. This is what I try to show and change! I´ve been at larps where a ritual was being performed that needed to be stopped and I kinda felt sorry that I had to stop that ritual because it was so nice to watch. With the proper preparation rituals can be an epic climax of any story-line.

I agree, intensity en immersion are needed for a good ritual. But these are -results- of a good ritual, the effects if you will. Not something that can be designed beforehand. It is the same with all LARP encounters, I might add. You need awesome characters, good role-players, a setting, a storyline, perhaps some NPCS and then the story can grip you by the throat and really drag you in. Let me compare a ritual with writing a character. First of all there is an idea on what kind of person the character is, his beliefs, core values etc. Those are the symbols in a ritual. Then, you decide what the character looks like, how he or she acts, what he or she wears, etc. Those are the actions. The words are whatever the character says, how he speaks etc. Sure, there are characters that somehow just ... work. Same goes for rituals. But thinking about these three elements beforehand can hardly hurt, no?

The main problem is why rituals are difficult is (and all experienced ritualist will agree to some extent) is that rituals are damn scary the first time you do them. Everyone is looking at you, the slightest error can completely screw up the ritual and you also have to entertain everyone.

I've done rituals without preparation of any sort, that where so incredibly awesome. But when looking back, I can clearly distinguish the elements that where part of the whole experience. The words, the actions and most of all the symbolism that was lurking behind everything.

I am very disappointed with most of the rituals I have seen.
Tragically I have an idea, how to do it better, but there ist mostly no time. And because I'd never try a ritual with too less time, theres always somebody else, who does.
Additionally, I am not a person to lead people. Neither for having them making a good ritual, nor to take a role in the camp-leading structures.

Therefore I'm learning for the leadership of my little group, and hopefully next CoM we can try our first ritual in this group, as a little group-ritual. And maybe we can begin to show, what I call a nice ritual.

Nevertheless it's a long way to success, cause of the few ressources we have.


Sascha/Arve

Hmm, it is interesting to see that so many people seem to believe that rituals require a lot of time to prepare. With the proper mindset, they should not require that much time. If need be I require a maximum of about thirty minutes to prepare a somewhat complicated ritual, given that there are not too much participating ritualists. Granted, a ritual with 10+ active ritualists will require somewhat more effort and time to prepare and practice. Of course, I have quite some experience with both public speaking and doing rituals, but it need not take days to prepare one.

The first ritual I did on conquest took about 30 minutes. I had to instruct a secondary leading ritualist and find some props. The second one took about 10 minutes, as we needed a localisation ritual and someone had an awesome prop of a spider, and somebody else had a ball of wool. Both where quite nice rituals all in all. Too bad we did not have that much crowd to watch us.

As specified in the document, writing certain "blocks" that can be mixed and matched to form a ritual can greatly speed up the process of creating a ritual. For one highly ritualistic group in which I was the main ritualist we had prayer books with about 30 pre written prayers which could be slapped into any ritual. Together with a ritual book containing several pre written ritual speeches/patter it was very easy indeed to make a ritual if need be.

I am inclined to teach an in-character class next ConQuest. It seems more people are disappointed by the level of the rituals and wish to learn. Learning is always good, methinks. Do you think it would be possible to find enough pupils? The basis as specified in the document would take me about four hours to teach. Preferably all pupils will have to perform a ritual at the end, so 3 classes of 2 hours would be sufficient. I can teach this all In-character too.

Well, maybe I use this amount of time cause of my class. And I habe choosen this kind of class cause of my abilities.
If I had choosen a class, that I would allow to make "instant"-rituals, then I maybe try a not-so-well-prepared-ritual - but for such a kind of ritual I am not the required kind of dancer/singer/whatever-showmaster.
My preferred ritual needs about 95% preparation-time (planning and preparing the place, if possible without bored guardians), and 5% magical work/showtime.

Yes, I had already tried a few "instant"-rituals, but these only worked fine, when I had a really shaped vision (preparation) of what I wanted to do, and which magical work is specifically needed/useful.
So, there's been an important amount of depth in the instructions I got, and so on.


Sascha/Arve

Oh dear, that contradiction slipped through! I'll fix that in later versions.

I'm afraid the ritual booming voice is a bit difficult to explain by written communication. The "speak further not louder" is quite close to the mark. Screaming and whispering each have their place in a ritual, but they have much more symbolism attached, and tend to set very specific moods.

I can give an example of a plot twist during a ritual, as I performed such a ritual this ConQuest. My character (Abraxas) is part of a group of infernal mobsters belonging to a single clan. He himself however was ousted from another clan by his sister, who then took control over that clan. Being a devil of pride, revenge was nearly mandatory. So, I did a ritual together with some other members of my group. A symbolic connection was made to the targeted person (being abraxas' sister) by creating a scrying pool, and some hellfire was created in a cup (glass chalice filled with straw and lampoil, which was ignited, very nice effect indeed!). After both elements where in place, I started a one sided conversation, a bit like hearing a telephone conversation. I explained that I had stolen a document with great importance for my former clan, and that if I did not get the power she had stolen from me back, the paper might slip from my hands into the conveniently placed hellfire.

After the power was returned, everyone thought the ritual was over. But pride is a bitch after all, which I explained loudly to all those present. With a gleeful smile on my face I unfolded the important document and loudly proclaimed; Do you really think I would be so stupid to take the actual documents into a ritual circle, my dear sister. No, no, too much risk. This here (waiving the document) is an advertisement leaflet for my new clan. You won't mind if I burn it anyway, do you?

I left the circle laughing.

Yeah, scent is a very powerful tool. However, its use is somewhat limited to indoor use. Scent is very useful for making someone remember something. Good use of symbolism, I would think.

I'm a chemist by profession, and I'm afraid that I know of no truly safe pyrotechnics. It's always a calculated risk you are taking.

Regarding to voice: I have the luxury to just be able to switch between head voice and chest voice. I tried to teach it to my girlfriend, because chest voice gives you a much louder voice without compromising understandability. I didn't succeed, mostly because I don't know how to do it, I just do it.
So, what I wanted to say: Try to speak with your chest voice. Don't press the words, just state them clearly and try to speak from your belly. It is very good to do that the first times while standing straight up. And don't mind getting a much darker voice, thats certainly mandatory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chest_voice

In german:
"Aus dem Bauch heraus" ist hier der wichtige Tip. Versucht nicht, die Worte möglichst laut zu pressen und eure Stimme zu pressen, sondern tief im Bauch zu sprechen. Besser kann es vielleicht ein Gesangslehrer erklären?